About CWA

CENTRE OF WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY (CWA) is attached to the University of Copenhagen . The current director of the centre is Professor, Dr.Phil. Klavs Randsborg.

Active Danish members currently include Inga Merkyte, MPhil, Signe Andersen, CPhil, Niels Algreen Møller, BA, Søren Albek, BA, Thomas Roland, MA, Søren Sindbæk , MA .

Active members worldwide include Prof. Richard Hodges ( Norwich ), Prof. Alessandro Guidi ( Verona ), Prof. Leo S. Klejn ( St. Petersburg ), Dr. Jing Song Shi ( Beijing ), Prof. Alexis Adandé (Porto Novo), Dr. Yaw Bredwa-Mensah (Legon), Dr. Lorenc Bejko (Tirana), Prof. Paul Sinclair ( Uppsala ), Steffen Stummann Hansen, MA (Thorshavn), Dr. Algimantas Merkevicius ( Vilnius ), Prof. Ivan Gatsov ( Sofia ).

CENTRE OF WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY is an umbrella organization for a series of archaeological field-activities, studies and initiatives worldwide.

The international archaeological journal Acta Archaeologica, founded in 1930 and with contributions in English, German, French, and Italian, is edited by the CWA (publishers Blackwell-Munksgaard).

The present home page informs about current and future initiatives. It also provides a series of useful archaeological links.

CENTRE OF WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY

can be reached by email to or

Phones: +45-35324111 or +45-40915108 (also sms)
Fax: +45-35324105

Postal address:
Acta Archaeologica
c/o Professor Klavs Randsborg
SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen
Njalsgade 80, DK-2300 Copenhagen, DENMARK

Bastrup (Massive Medieval tower from 1100, comparative studies in settlement and society)

The massive round Bastrup stone tower from around 1100 AD in North Sjælland/Zealand, Denmark is seemingly the largest in Europe of its time. The diameter is 21m, the walls being 6m thick at the base. It is probably a royal foundation surrounded by forests and good agricultural soils; it is also at the cross-roads of the watersheds of the region. Furthermore, it may be the oldest surviving stone structure of the country, apart from some churches (and the much older Megalithic graves).

While farms and estates of the Bronze and Iron Ages, including the Viking Age, are archaeologically well known, this is not the case of the high and late Middle Ages. Thus, Bastrup is a prime point of departure for investigations into the archaeology of Medieval estates known merely from a few written sources.

At the same time, the social and cultural environment of Denmark, and in particular Sjælland, was international in outlook and aspirations with princes and clergy dominating all Northern Europe and well as being superbly informed about European and other affairs.

The Baltic Countries, including Lithuania

Comparative research at "the other" cultural laboratory of the Baltic; investigation of Bronze Age moulds

Alaborg (Viking period settlement and cemeteries on River Shas near Lake Ladoga )

Suvorovo near Ismaël on the Danube (settlements and burials from the Copper Age to the Kholkhose; the so-called "Trajan" wall; Turkish and Russian fortresses and military camps of c1800; ship of c1600AD; comparative studies) /Crimea (Greek settlements on the Tarkhanhut peninsula; Migration Period cemetery at Chatyr Dag; some comparative studies)

On the Crimea, the investigations have been concentrated on a Migration Period 5th century AD cemetery (and village settlement) at Chatyr Dag (east of fabled Yalta on the rich hilly "Mediterranean" south coast), and on ancient Greek settlements of the Tarkhanhout peninsula in the northwest. Chatyr Dag is seemingly a settlement of Roman auxiliaries even with weapons and jewellery of Baltic extraction.

The Greek Tarkhanhout settlement in the steppe region is stringed out along the coast but also the interior has been used for fields. The degree of preservation is superb, usually much better than in the Mediterranean ; even single farmstead have been characterized in great detail. Furthermore, the greater historical picture can be outlined is graphic detail. The area was chosen for its greater accessibility than the famous Sevastopol region in the southwest.

In Bessarabia or Budjak ("The Corner" in Turkish) - the part of south western Ukraine between Odessa and the Danube - the ambitions have been to trace the material culture history of one municipality, Suvorovo, "from the Copper Age to the Kolkhose", mapping being possible after the fall of the USSR . The ancient settlements were on the lakes and rivers (leading to the Danube ) while the dry interior was filled with the ancient kurgans of travelling nomads like stars in the sky. Budjak is a highly interesting region between the Mediterranean cultures, the Steppe societies and the cultures of Central Europe : a meeting point of three worlds.

Suvorovo is cut by the massive several hundred kilometre long so-called "Trajan's Wall" (which however may turn out to be from the greater Bulgarian period, indeed being the northern boundary of the realm). Mediterranean influence is witnessed in Greek import in nomadic graves and a massive Roman imports from across the Danube , only 30 kilometres to the south.

Highly interesting finds of Turkish fortress sites and a Russian marching fort (four cannon and 100 pit-houses in ten lines) from around 1800 AD have given superb insights into military life in the field at the time of Napoleon. The fort sits on the road between Odessa and Ismaël on the Danube (besieged and taken by Russia in 1790, in fact General Suvorov). Each pit-house (with an oven in the corner) probably held about ten men. Crosses, coins and bottles for alcohol leave no doubt about the origin of the soldiers, in spite of nomad female attire and Turkish pipes. Rectangular earthen walls crowned with timbers or fortification baskets and moats surrounded the camp which was situated in the fork between two smaller rivers.

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